By Patrick Lafferty, Chief Operating Officer at Acceleration Community of Companies
Every account at every creative agency has leads. A lead strategist, a lead creative, an account lead and various others responsible for rallying teams to get great work done. But there’s one critical lead your agency is missing: lead entrepreneur.
Job Description: Lead Entrepreneur
Just what is the lead entrepreneur? Think less startup jargon and less account director. Rather, the lead entrepreneur enables and empowers people to act courageously and in the interest of the business and the team.
Having a lead entrepreneur isn’t about hiring someone steeped in startup mechanics. It is a reframing of the role of the account lead, empowering people to take bold action and giving the often embattled account function new relevance.
Put simply, turning account leads into lead entrepreneurs will change how your agency works, bringing to it the strengths of a startup, such as speed, creativity, decisiveness, and accountability.
Relevant Work History: A Startup Mindset
With entrepreneurship comes accountability. In a startup environment, there is no way to pass the buck or defer responsibility when things don’t go as planned. That’s a big difference from creative agencies where multiple departments, siloes and layered leadership can often make it difficult to see who’s responsible for what.
The lead entrepreneur model eliminates this confusion by fostering a sense of ownership and accountability in your account leads. They see themselves not just as coordinators but as business owners responsible for the success of their client engagements. To maximize the upside of any opportunity, these leads are encouraged to take calculated risks and be proactive in identifying new opportunities for their clients. They’re also empowered to say “no” and offer alternatives when client direction might stymie business growth and great work.
Duties and Responsibilities:
Embrace Agility and Adaptability
Those same barriers to accountability can also slow agencies down. Entrepreneurs are known for their ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances, and this quality is invaluable in a business where speed-to-market is all-important. Lead entrepreneurs are fast, ready to pivot strategies and approaches in response to evolving business needs or market realities.
This adaptability ensures that the agency remains relevant and can respond swiftly to new challenges and opportunities. Lead entrepreneurs are not afraid to experiment with new methods or ideas, learning from both successes and failures to continuously improve the work.
Drive Innovation and Creativity
By definition, entrepreneurship is about doing what hasn’t been done. Agency creatives may share the same comfort with taking on the blank page, but this typically isn’t required of account managers. It should be.
After all, innovation and creativity are a creative agency’s oxygen. Lead entrepreneurs play a crucial role in keeping these elements in heavy supply by closing the gap between the client’s needs and the creative team’s output. They understand the business objectives and work closely with their creative partners to ensure that their ideas are not only innovative but also strategically aligned with the client’s goals.
Lead entrepreneurs encourage their teams to push boundaries and explore unconventional solutions. They create an environment where creativity can flourish by promoting open communication and collaboration. This can lead to groundbreaking work that sets their client’s business and their sagency apart in a crowded market.
Streamline Decision-Making
Great entrepreneurs are known for their decisiveness and ability to make informed decisions quickly. One of the key advantages of having lead entrepreneurs is their ability to streamline decision-making processes. By adopting this trait, account leads can reduce the time it takes to move from concept to execution and more quickly address tricky client feedback or direction.
Lead entrepreneurs cut through the red tape and bureaucracy that can often slow down agency work. They are empowered to make critical decisions on the spot, ensuring that projects progress smoothly and efficiently. This agility allows the agency to respond swiftly to client needs and market changes, maintaining a competitive edge.
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Lead entrepreneurs have a critical role to play powering creative agencies through today’s competitive landscape. At its heart, the role takes aim at the structural challenges that often hold agencies back. It adds speed, amplifies creativity, reduces swirl and inertia. Lead entrepreneurs sit at the all-important intersection of idea and reality and are charged with making one become the other. As Henry Ford once said, “Vision without execution is just hallucination.” Agencies investing in and cultivating these power players are more likely to realize their creative visions.
